“I think I need a break. I might move home for a while. I’ve realized Alex [husband of 2 years] is abusive…”
My friend’s confidence cut me to the heart. I was devastated for her. I felt her pain keenly but also felt the pain of seeing yet another of my dear friends’ marriages sailing dangerously close to the rocks.
Already, so many of my closest friends had chosen to leave their relationships, citing different forms of abuse (spousal or parental).
Was there anyone left?
Once upon a time I referred to my childhood as one in which I experienced “abuse”. And it’s true, not everything was perfect and I certainly did not emerge unscathed. Contemplating certain activities and phrases still make my hair stand on end and my skin crawl. I’m hyper sensitive to particular conversation topics and take a long time to recover from particular references, let alone jabs or insults.
But, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. My parents were good people. They absolutely did their best. They tried hard to ensure that we always had what they thought we needed and gave us freedom to do crazy things I can’t believe they let us do. We were stable, well traveled, kept from physical harm, and never wanted for food, treats, or Christmas presents. This would be paradise compared to the drama, pain, and stolen innocence most kids experience in an average childhood anymore.
But, my parents were people.
They weren’t perfect and they didn’t know everything.
Sometimes exhaustion and overwhelm win out over making an effort. Sometimes irritation wins out over kindness. Sometimes nobody taught us how to deal with the fact that life and love are hard. It’s natural for patterns of bad habits to appear whether we recognize them or not and we don’t always know how to get rid of them, and sometimes we don’t want to. For our fallen human nature, sometimes that wins out.
There is nothing easy about this, about marriage or parenting – not a whole lot that is comfortable about loving or living with other imperfect people.
Sometimes abuse can be real – pointed, habitual, intentional cruelty – this is especially obvious in the different types of physical abuse – and, obviously, it is important to remove ourselves and our children from dangerous situations, but, more often than not, “abuse”, especially emotional abuse, is far more subtle and subject to perception. Parents think they are providing freedom, or they prioritize “providing”, and kids experience neglect. Some do their best to provide rigor and discipline and the child experiences cruelty. Some parents are afraid their child might experience cruelty and therefore refuse to discipline and the child experiences a lack of love or interest in their welfare. Some parents try to provide responsibility and the child says they had their “childhood stolen from them”. Some parents point out mistakes so that their child can grow and change and the child experiences insult. Some parents say nothing and the child blames them for not guiding them.
This is really hard, people. And none of us know what we are doing. All we know is it’s hard and we get tired. We drop balls and quit trying when we feel inadequate. We succumb to impatience when our sense of justice is infringed upon, and struggle with kindness when we do not understand.
The point is, we all have wounds and scars. We have all wounded and scarred other people. We don’t know everything and we aren’t perfect. To be in a close relationship is to experience some kind of abuse. Love is hard because it requires us to remain vulnerable, to believe in the other person’s best intentions, and to forgive even if.
Abuse is horrible. It is painful. It is real. It is rampant. We are all hurting.
It is right to be horrified.
But, what if the bigger problem is our victim mentality. Do you really want to go through your whole life blaming everything you do and feel on someone else? It doesn’t matter if it’s “fair”. The real question is: Will we be the ones to rise up and break the cycle?
In the end, it doesn’t matter what someone else did… At some point its GOT to be about what YOU do. Own it! YOU have free will. YOU make your own choices. No one else controls you (even if you want to pretend they do). You can’t keep passing the blame, especially if you are a “grown up”. Your choices ultimately have nothing to do with anyone else. You are not obligated to live your life in reaction to your past, even if that past was less than 30 seconds ago. You get to choose who you want to be, right here, right now. This is the only moment that exists.
This is the moment that matters.
Yes, hurt people hurt people.
But they don’t have to.
Let’s set a new tone, set a new trend, be the ones to raise the bar again.
Is it hard, scary, foreign, and a little painful?
Yes… but if we do it together, we won’t be alone. And together we can make a difference.
Love and Prayers,
<3
