Learning To Live With It

  “For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:22

  I don’t feel much like writing this morning. It happens. Part of it is because my head is all over the map. Ugly flashes of memory are juxtaposed over worship lyrics and thoughts of Jesus. Back and forth.  I would be more than happy to have the ugly half vanish.

   I know it’s been a bit over fifteen years since the chains of marital oppression were broken and I fell into the arms of Jesus. (Thank You for being there, my Lord.) You’d think I would be beyond this but in all honesty, I wasn’t ready to delve deeper before now.  Forgive me, Lord, for being ashamed of this and for running away. There has been much thinking away from the writing which has created some headway towards peace. 

  My marriage was not a Godly one. Neither my ex nor I were followers of Jesus. To hold either of us up to His way is neither fair nor right because that’s judging. It's a brutally punishing way to plaster guilt, shame and blame everywhere. It only feeds hate.

  That’s not to say I didn’t believe in God back then, my issue was with the church no matter the religion. But unsupported faith is a dangerous thing. It’s why God’s Word was able to be taken out of context then used as a weapon of oppression. The Lord was entirely removed…”submit to your husband” was the law of the land. No mention was ever made about the husband’s role.

  There were consequences if I dared disobey or dared question his behaviour or choices or anything for that matter. Not that I had much fight in me anyways. I think that’s part of why he chose me. He knew he could exert control over me.

  I say this with neither bitterness nor anger. It is simply the way it was.

    I wasn’t perfect by any means…I was good at keeping secrets. Another of the rules. “Never talk about your spouse to anyone.” To do so was an act of disrespect. Maybe if I had I would have been…No. Wishful thinking and putting hindsight on a situation serves no purpose. Besides, I had no trusted friend to confide in even if I could. I had a hard time trusting anyone anyways. His control simply pushed me farther away from others. (No anger here; just the facts.)

  I also ran from actually thinking about everything that was decidedly wrong about the whole situation.  He had an addiction to alcohol. I had video games. I knew I was desperately unhappy but believed if I only tried harder…Things would be better.

  Sigh.

  I did the best that I could with the tools I had at the time. There weren’t too many and those few were broken.

  Thank You, Lord, the hate towards him has gone from my heart. In its place is a deep sorrow for the toll those twenty years had on my life, for the need for medications that ease the symptoms of PTSD. I feel sad for the woman who often wondered how things had got so bad. But mostly for the woman who believed a double standard was okay because of his manly “rights” as husband.

  So maybe the reason I am sharing this is to create awareness. Abuse doesn’t always involve physical harm. It also doesn’t happen overnight.

  There term grooming comes to mind. Little punishments, like for something as mundane as not buying the right brand of honey, slowly multiply. The point is to not drive away the abused by going too far too fast.

  Kindness or affection becomes a weapon, too, by being withheld or by making random appearances to atone for the cruel words of yesterday.

  There’s more to it than this. Please, check it out online because I want to reach out to any woman, or man for that matter, who may be trapped by the cycle of abuse. You are not alone. You have nothing to be ashamed of either. I say again, abuse does not have to be physical.

  For someone who didn’t feel much like writing, it seems I had a lot to say. (Smile.)

  To end, I realize there is so much to be thankful for. I know much better now because the pure love of Jesus is showing me the way of love and relationships. We cannot do it on our own. Ever.