My Thoughts on…

I watched a message online  from a woman with a black eye.  She said she wanted to warn other women about staying in an abusive relationship.  As I read her story I found out that over the course of two years with her boyfriend, he had regularly cheated on her and beat her.  She left him but went back only to continue with the same treatment.  She finally did leave, but after reading her story I got the feeling she will probably be telling that same story again only with another boyfriend.

I’m saying that because I did the exact same thing.  I stayed in a horribly abusive marriage for a while, left him for a year and went right back to that horrible treatment.  It never occurred to me while I was in that abuse that I needed to look at myself.   We can blame the abuser of course, he deserves it.  But unless you figure out why you’re with him and not with a man who adores and loves the ground you walk on.  You’ll end up with another, just like the last.  My “light-bulb” moment came after  my divorce.  I asked myself some questions;  “What’s going on with me, why did I let someone treat me like that?”   What I was really asking was; “What did I feel I deserved.”   When I was in that marriage I thought this was the best I could do for myself.  I was abused as a child so abuse felt “normal’ to me.   Just as an abuser does what he does because he has “issues.”  We stay in an abusive relationship because we have issues too.

Once I was out of that marriage I began to learn how to value myself, and I’ve never looked back.  You  must know that a final  release from the indignity of abuse starts with telling yourself,  “What do I feel I deserve?”