Monthly Archives: July 2016
He is still good.
Through it all, through all the brokenness and shattered lives, through the heartbreak and the pain, late night tears after the kids go to bed… My God is still a good God. My God is still a God who has the power to transform lives. My God is a God who can still perform the most unlikely of miracles.
But here’s the kicker.
… If those miracles never happen the way we pray for them to happen, and if those lives aren’t changed in ways we have been begging and pleading for them to change… If not… He is still good.
Let me repeat that:
If not, He. Is. Still. Good.
As the world turns
I’ve had a bit of an epiphany. Ok ok, it wasn’t exactly something that came to me organically – I have my dear friends to thank for gently pointing it out to me.
Right now, my life is this divorce. This mess. My narcissist. My chaos. It’s on my brain 24/7 (or pretty near that much, it seems). So of course when I hear that he’s been spreading lies (or gross exaggerations) to what used to be mutual friends, my mind jumps to the worst possible conclusion.
Part of the problem is the silence. Through all of this, there have been just a couple friends (from church, for example) that have actually stepped in and asked how I was doing, or checked in on me during this craptastic time in my life. The rest? The people I thought were friends? Radio silence. And it’s deafening. And oh so painful. Because I automatically assume they believe him. Which means I assume they now all think I’m this evil vindictive abusive manipulative monster that he’s portraying me to be. Because I’m not hearing otherwise (other than these precious couple mutual friends of ours).
Basically, in my head, I picture all of these “friends” going about their own lives, obsessing over my mess like I am. Like it’s all they think about as well. So when I hear their silence, I interpret it as them standing there shaking their head and giving me the “tsk tsk” finger and turning away from me completely.
The truth that was spoken to me the other night is this: the world doesn’t revolve around me. 😛
Yes, this message was delivered to me in a much gentler way than this, but that’s the truth of it. What I interpret as friends turning their backs on me might simply be the fact that my friends actually have lives of their own (*gasp*). My world revolves around this drama. Theirs doesn’t. Maybe they don’t hate me. Maybe they don’t disapprove. Maybe they don’t think I’m evil. Granted, it sure would be nice if any of them cared to speak to me, but they aren’t, and I am not in a place where I can be the one to reach out. And I can’t force them to reach out to me. It is what it is. But the truth remains: not everyone is thinking about my situation as much as I am.
That is actually very freeing to think about. It doesn’t change how they ARE thinking about me (and I am working on figuring out how to stop caring what others think), but it helps to know that they aren’t obsessing over the monster they think I am. They are going about their lives. Tending to their own families. Worrying about their own dramas. And who knows – maybe some of them even believe that what I’m doing is right and good, and for whatever reason, they just aren’t speaking up. It’s been eye opening to start to see who my true friends are, and I’m sure as time goes on, the dust will settle and I will get a clearer picture of my newly established Tribe. My People. I know it will be a different circle of friends, but I’m already seeing who has their feet planted in my mud, arms outstretched ready to help me trudge through it all. ❤
I wish
I was married for 12.5 years. The emotional abuse started within the first couple of years (we were both military and he deployed a few months after we got married). He was offered his first alcoholic drink when he was in Iraq, and by the time he came home, he settled into a routine of polishing off a case of beer with a buddy in one night. This happened frequently. I wasn’t able to identify the emotional abuse until after we moved back home (year 3-4 of marriage) and even when I did, it was usually brushed off as PTSD.
He punched me in 2007 (followed by holding me to the ground in a headlock). It became a joke in years to come – a joke that I learned not to hit him because he hits back. His response to that incident was that “he learned how to neutralize the enemy while he was in the army.” So that’s all he was doing. He was doing what he was trained.
For some reason, that didn’t comfort me. It only reminded me that he was trained to kill.
Over the years there was VERY little physical abuse. There were a few times where he would hold me tight in bed and not let me go (not in a romantic or playful way). Other than that, I don’t really think there were any other actual physical encounters. It’s like he got smart. He knew that when he hit, I left. He learned he couldn’t hit, there would be consequences*.
*why I didn’t leave immediately when he stood at the foot of my bed with a loaded gun is beyond me….
I am going to be VERY real with you, and it’s not going to be pretty: I get jealous of the women that have been knocked around by their men. I have said for YEARS that I wished he would just hit me. People understand physical abuse. They are terribly offended when a man lays a hand on his lady. Leave a mark? Leave your man! Oh how I’ve wished I had external markings on my body to show my abuse. I’ve desperately wished he’d beat me to a bloody pulp. Now that’s something I can take a picture of. That’s proof of his abuse. That would get people saying “You can’t stay! He hurts you! What if he turns on your kids?!”
But no. Sadly, nobody can see how he hurt me. In fact, over the past 3 months I have felt re-victimized as I hear him telling his stories and as I hear people actually believing him (without feeling the need to get my side of the story). I’ve had my credibility questioned, my reputation trashed, my character scrutinized. I wish I could show you the damage he did to my brain. The bruises on my heart. I wish there had been video cameras for all the times I left a conversation with him lost in the gaslighting fog and confusion. Thankfully I have some amazing friends that have been by my side through it ALL and can bear witness to the many many times I’ve come to them saying “what the heck just happened?”
My counselor has said she believes I have PTSD from my marriage. THAT’S crazy. But I believe it.
I feel morbid wishing he had beat me up, but it’s how I feel. I’ve spent a decade being emotionally/mentally beat up, and now I feel like I have to have notarized documents proving it all. It would have been so much easier to tell people “he hit me”, and here’s the bruise to prove it.
By the way, bruises on the heart take a really really really long time to heal… just FYI.
Protected: The one about the puppy
Why Stay?
I watched this TED talk today… and I’m not quite ready to share it on facebook yet. So here I shall plant it.
I’ve said many MANY times that I wished he had hit me. People understand physical abuse. They are horrified to see bruises. They insist you leave if he lays a hand on you. So no, my story is not like this woman’s, but it’s had it’s horrifying moments as well. She says something a little over 10 minutes in that really hit home for me.
“I never once thought of myself as a battered wife. Instead, I was a very strong woman in love with a deeply troubled man. And I was the only person on earth who could help [Conor] face his demons.”
And in response to the common question: why doesn’t she just leave?
Because it’s incredibly dangerous to leave an abuser.
My story doesn’t involve the physical abuse the same way it involves her, but the ending is chillingly similar. I left because I was terrified (and still am fearful) that he would kill us all. He already planned to end his own life when he felt he had nothing left, so it’s not that far of a reach to think he would have a “if I can’t have them, nobody can” mindset.
“Because the final step in the domestic violence pattern is kill her. Over 70% of domestic violence murders happen after the victim has ended the relationship. After she’s gotten out. Because then the abuser has nothing left to lose. Other outcomes include long term stalking, even after the abuser remarries. Denial of financial resources, and manipulation of the family court system to terrify the victim and her children, who are regularly forced by family court judges to spend unsupervised time with the man who beat their mother.”
Why do I blog about my abusive marriage? Because abuse thrives on silence.
the incandescent life 